


luminosity

by isometric



Category: South Park
Genre: Cartman displaying the "kindness" he is canonly capable of giving, Comfort/Angst, Gen, Kyle has dysthymia but it's not touched upon, M/M, cartman briefly appears for like 1min, kind of an open ending because sometimes people just aren’t ready for a relationship, unfriendly descriptions of death but nothing graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 11:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18151175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isometric/pseuds/isometric
Summary: Kyle remembers Kenny's deaths for him.





	luminosity

**Author's Note:**

> [let me sleep](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-BbeLmOAYE)  
>  i am tired of my grief  
>  and i would like you to love me

He finds Kenny’s bones on the beach, washed ashore. Every so often, larger waves lap at them, too weak to tug them back to the sea.

Kyle sits down on the sand. “When I asked for a body,” he says, “I meant more.”

The bones stay silent. They’ve never once spoken to him. The sea churns at the shore, endless, relentless, overwhelming in the silence. Kyle looks to the horizon, at the rising sun, the pale orange of the sky, and wishes he could feel more.

He says, “Let’s go home.”

  


* * *

  
Last week, Kenny bled out in his arms after a bank robbery went wrong. He’d gurgled, scared and in pain, and the little girl he’d protected continued to cry long after he was gone.

They don’t play superheroes anymore. Kyle refuses to join, and after seeing the look in his eyes, Kenny sits out as well, watching their friends don their grade-school costumes from the sidelines. It’s better this way. Danger always seems to follow Kenny around.

It’s better this way even if no one remembers the consequences.

When he was ten,  Kyle figured he’d try to put an end to all of it. He’d drag Kenny home for sleepovers, convinced his presence could somehow ward off the ever present threat of death. He’d tried everything: asked Father Maxi to perform exorcisms, tested cleansing rituals found on witch forums, snuck out to hidden sacred places on international school trips, even went to Christian churches to pray that Kenny’s god might protect him.

By age fifteen, he’d understood what it was to hold on to lost causes. There are no higher powers, or rather, none able or willing to help. He can look out for Kenny, enlist Craig in looking after him, but there’s nothing else he can do. He still drags Kenny home sometimes, after ensuring the other McCormick siblings have somewhere safe to spend the night, but it’s not about protection anymore.

Now, Kyle does it as a reminder to himself that Kenny’s still alive. That he’s safe in his arms, that the outside world is just that, a world outside of his concerns.

Beside him, Kenny breathes quietly in his sleep, his face softened from the worries of the day. His hand is warm in Kyle’s grasp, the weight of him heavy but comforting. Last week, he’d bled to death in Kyle’s arms, and Kyle can’t even complain, because it’s better than having to go search for a body he’s convinced he won’t always find.

At least it was a cleaner death, he tells himself. At least this time, he had a body to bury.

  


* * *

  
Kenny finds him at the edge of Stark’s Pond.

Kenny always finds him.

It used to mystify him, how Kenny always seems to know when and where he’s needed. But Kenny’s always been observant and kind. Maybe that’s why the world can’t bear to let him live.

“Stan’s worried,” Kenny says.

“I’m fine,” he mumbles back.

Kenny hums at that. Then he squeezes onto the bench with Kyle, rests his head against Kyle’s shoulder.

Kyle doesn’t dare look at him. He can’t shake the memory of the bullet hole in Kenny’s forehead, his open, empty eyes. The way the blood had drawn thick tear trails down his face. That was five hours ago, and now Kenny’s back, and no one else remembers it.

They sit in the dark, listening to the wind whistle through the trees. Above them, the stars shine bright and distant. Kenny feels that way too, a steady light he can’t hold on to. If he should see Kenny’s face and find it bleeding still; if he should forget the sight of it, like everyone else... Sometimes, averting his eyes is safer.

Kenny sits with him till the warmth of him softens the stone in his lungs. Makes him breathe easier. Kyle reaches for his hand.

“Come home with me,” he says.

Kenny stiffens at his side. “Karen—”

“Sleepover with Tricia.”

“Kevin—”

“Away on his overnight trip, you said.”

Kenny stays silent for a beat. Then he relaxes again, a fond huff escaping him. “Okay,” he murmurs into Kyle’s jacket.

And later that night, bunked together in Kyle’s twin bed, trying to find sleep before the sun rises, if Kyle holds him closer and tighter than he usually does, Kenny doesn’t say a thing.

  


* * *

  
They’re having a civil conversation for once, and it’s about Kenny. Kyle’s not even surprised that Kenny would be the one subject they can agree on. By tomorrow, he’ll have forgotten the details of their talk, and they’ll meet again like two sharp knives.

“It used to be different,” Cartman says. “It used be, he was the only one who remembered.”

Kyle nods, even though he doesn’t understand. Kenny’s never remembered dying, not in preschool and not now. And Kyle’s never forgotten.

“He’d die in front of you, and you care for maybe all of five seconds, and then you move on. He’s still dead, but the universe rewrites your memory so that to you, it never happened.”

“Then how come you remember?”

“I’d have to care first, wouldn’t I?” The smile Cartman wears is callous, but it doesn’t reach his eyes; he’s always been that way when it comes to Kenny. Then his smile drops, and stillness returns to his face.

“But I remember,” Kyle tells him. ( _I wish I didn’t remember._ )

“I know,” Cartman says. “But it didn’t use to be that way.”

“So what? You think Kenny and I just suddenly switched memory?”

Cartman hesitates. “No,” he says. “You know how they're talking about parallel worlds colliding?”

Kyle mulls on it. It’s been in the news, lately, Channel 5 reporters going into frenzy about how scientists might have discovered proof of the multiverse, something about a cold spot in the sky. Kyle’s looked into himself, in the aftermath of a particularly nasty death that had pulverized Kenny’s body, haunted by the need to know that Kenny was out there somewhere— and found nothing convincing. But then again, there’s nothing logical or scientific about Kenny.

“Do you think it’s because he’s dead in those other worlds?” he asks.

Cartman’s expression turns conflicted. “Kenny’s… different. He’s always been. You’re never going to be able to save him.”

Kyle sucks in a breath.

“Something about him doesn’t sit right with the world.”

“Him existing, you mean” he interjects. Cartman looks away. “That’s why it wants him dead? Or,” he thinks a bit more, “him dying serves a greater purpose.” He thinks back to all the times Kenny died to save him, or their town, however inadvertently. The stray bullets, the random carnage no one could have predicted.

“Him dying is what gives this world meaning,” he says, and it’s not an accusation. It’s not. He’s weary, bone-tired, caught between grief and apathy. None of this means anything.

“Kyle,” Cartman says, his tone coolly neutral, “in those other worlds, you never remembered. He went through it all alone.”

Kyle nods again, drawing in on himself. Rests his head in his hands, covering his eyes. But he understands what Cartman is saying.

“You can’t stop him from dying. So, wouldn’t you rather remember in his stead?”

  


* * *

  
“Kyle,” Kenny whispers, “can we talk about us?”

They’re slumped together on Kyle’s bed, waiting for the sun to rise. Kenny had woken him up from a nightmare, and then decided to stay up with him when he couldn’t return to sleep. He hadn’t complained when Kyle’s grip on his hand tightened, even though it must have hurt.

“What do you wanna talk about?”

In answer, Kenny shifts away to face him. “This thing between us,” he says, biting his lip, “I’m not imagining it, right?”

Kyle doesn’t know how to respond to that. But whatever it is Kenny sees in his face must be enough to bolster his courage.

“I know you’re always looking out for me,” he says. “I know you have some sort of deal with Craig so that one of you is always watching after me. But with you, sometimes, it… feels like more.”

Kenny falls silent after that, waiting for Kyle’s response. When he receives none, he drops his gaze, looking to the window he’d opened to give Kyle fresh air. He doesn’t pull his hand away. In the pale grey of the morning light, he looks like something holy, a blessed silver reliquary that holds of the heart of universe.

“I like you,” Kenny confesses into the quiet. “I really do. But it’s hard to figure you out. When you look at me sometimes, it’s like you’re drowning inside, and I’m the one bringing you air because I just happen to be there.” He swallows, his voice trembling and vulnerable when he continues, “I don’t want to be a band-aid to your mental health.”

“You’re more than that,” Kyle tells him.

“Then what do I mean to you?"

“You’re—” (a light at the end of hope). Kyle pauses, trying to find the right words. “A lighthouse,” he manages.

It’s another moment before Kenny asks, “What am I leading you towards?”

Kyle bites his tongue. His conversation with Cartman comes back to mind, forgotten after two long months. Forgotten because he’d willed it, unable to live with the envy of the otherworld him who lives in ignorance. If it’s a tradeoff, it’s better not being able to choose, when he can’t trust himself to make the right choice.

But Kenny would. 

“Talk to me,” he says quietly, still turned towards the light. “Let me help."

For a long time, Kyle just watches him, the way light washes his bruises away. Kenny’s always shone brightest like this, when he gives his all for others. Some days, that’s all he lives long enough to do.

“I dream of you dying,” Kyle finally says. Kenny stiffens, like his body remembers. Like he remembers Kyle crying against his broken form ( _don’t do this to me again please_ ), or Kyle at his bedside, the life support shutting off ( _you have to come back promise me you’ll come back_ ).

“I’ve dreamed of you dying for so long,” Kyle says, willing back the years of emotion he’s learned to cast aside. “I’ve seen you dead so many times, in so many ways. I can’t unsee them anymore."

Kenny turns to him again, eyes wide and pained. Kyle doesn’t pull him closer, even as he wishes he could hide away in him. Comfort to tide him over is one thing, but he can't anchor himself to a ghost ship. Mourning loses its appeal after a while.

“I don't—"

(— _want to keep watching you die. I don't want to be the only one who remembers. I don't think I can take it. I think I'm losing my mind._ )

( _If you don't come back, I don't think I can take it._ )

"—think I'm ready."

Kenny squeezes Kyle’s hand, settling back against Kyle’s side, warmth blooming where they meet. "It’s okay,” Kenny says. “No matter what, I’m here for you." 

He doesn’t push, always gentle when Kyle needs him to be. Maybe in another world, Kyle could have loved him for it.

In this world, Kyle leans his head against Kenny’s, gripping back Kenny’s hand in place of the words he can’t say. 

Somehow, it has to be enough.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>  ~~LOL can you tell this piece was written over different stages of my life RIP~~  
>   
>  I really meant for the OTP to get together, but after several rewrites of the ending, I realised there's no way that would happen within the fic. Kyle's in a bad place (though he's a bit better towards the end, because he gets to talk it out), and Kenny would never take advantage of that. I'd like to imagine that in the future, Kyle works through the trauma and gets better (whether he gets together with the source of the trauma is in the air).  
>    
> I tried to write Kyle as headstrong and convinced in his beliefs, even with dysthymia. He knows what he wants and isn't afraid to go after it. He's honest with himself about the flaws he's aware of, even if he avoids doing anything about them. He still sees the good in people, even Cartman (though I've not given him any reason not to see the good in Cartman oops?). It's just that in this fic, his way of coping with utter powerlessness is to hold on to his martyr complex.


End file.
